The back door is open, letting in the early spring breeze. A load of laundry is pegged out on the line to flutter dry.
I am sitting on the sofa in my dressing gown sipping earl grey tea and eating toast with marmalade. Medicine both for the soul and the wretched sore throat and headache which I am suffering with.
It feel a long time since I felt well. Suddenly, thinking about it (I never have time to just sit and think anymore) I realise I lost the baby in November and then have had a cough or cold coming or going ever since.
I feel the tide turning with the seasons, see the snowdrops, crocuses and violets nestled in the grass. There has been a constant vase of daffodils on my mantlepiece since February.
Walking home from work or an outing with Jessica, it is still light at 5:00. With the coming of spring, I feel my spirits lifting.
I started a ’40 Bags In 40 Days’ decluttering challenge for Lent. I have nearly finished the bathroom. It feels so freeing to just have the products that work and I use in there. I gave away all the samples I had been saving, the products I had tried but not liked but felt wasteful to throw away. It feels good. I am a natural squirrel, I find it hard to let go of things. But I am determined to go through the house from top to bottom and just keep enough. The things that work, the things I love. I live 5 minutes walk from two corner shops, 10 minutes walk from the main shops, 15 minutes walk from John Lewis. There is a 24 hour supermarket nearby. I need to stop saving things ‘in case’. I can’t think of many things I couldn’t get fairly easily and quickly if I needed to. And yet the urge to hold on to things is strong.
I keep things ‘in case’, because they were gifts, because I spent money on them, because I attach memories and feelings to things.
I’ll never be a minimalist, but it is time for this squirrel lady to get her stores in order!
It isn’t just the winter into spring which is a season turning. At the end of the month I turn 35. I feel the coming pulling tide of my own change of season. It feels signifcant this year. Like I should have decided who I am, what I want to do, to be. Much of our home is almost accidental. Things just are. I want more intention in our home, more design raher than patterns we have just fallen in to.
I feel like everything is in bud at the moment, ready to unfurl and blossom.
Happy spring, everybody!
Little Sips of Tea 
I think hanging onto things is part of being frugal. But it can drag a person down. I’ve been letting things go too and it feels good. I hope you are over your cold soon. Glad to hear your spirits are lifted; spring is always a hopeful time I think. Not for a good friend of mine though who will bury her child on Saturday. Her son who was 45 died of liver failure caused by a rare genetic disorder. She found out that both she and her husband had the gene which was passed on to their son. She is of course devastated and as her friend I want to console her; but there is not much consolation when your heart has been hit with this kind of loss. I love Cath Kidson and did not know her tea had such cute sachets. I wish I could get her things easily here in the U.S. Sometimes Barnes and Noble bookstore carries an item or two, but not often. Happy Almost Spring!